Please tell me you read the goal-setting section. Otherwise, productive just means busy, and there’s no value in that. To what end do you care about productivity?

My own goals for productivity include things like having a positive impact and making money. But they also include goals like being able to say on Saturday, “I didn’t work on productivity all week just to have to work on the weekend.”

Productivity Tactics

Hacks, tips, assessments — there’s a ton you can do to maximize your productivity.

• Finding Your Right Productivity Style for People Who Resist Productivity Advice ~Liz Sumner

Systems:

• Implement the Marc Andreessen Productivity System in Trello ~Bryan Ye
• This Weekly Planning Routine Puts You In Control ~Rafael Sarandeses

Skills & Habits:

• Eight Health Habits You Can Use to Build Energy and Get More Done Every Day ~John Zeratsky
• Four Strategies to Reduce Interruptions at Work ~Patrick Ewers
• How to Consistently Start with Your Most Important Task First ~George Halachev

Counterintuitively, productivity doesn’t mean working all the time:

• Taking Intentional Breaks at Work ~Marta Brzosko

Delegation:

• How to Hire and Train a Virtual Assistant to Multiply Your Time ~Richard Phu

A case study in tracking your time:

• Lessons Learned From Tracking (Almost) Every Hour in My Year ~Willem van Zyl

Cure Technology Distraction

This section has a lot of articles because technology distraction is so pervasive. You basically have to go device-by-device and service-by-service until they’re set up to allow you time to focus.

The most important rule is that technology should be your tool, not your boss. I’m partial to my own article as a starting point. It’s a 75-minute read, which should signal that it’s thorough. But I also hope readers see the length and clue into how much work they have ahead of them to reclaim their lives.

• How to Configure Your iPhone to Work For You, Not Against You ~Coach Tony

For Android owners, try this article:

• How to Create a Zen Experience On Your Android ~Chris Jennings

Given that my iPhone-specific tutorial is so long and extreme, you should also consider the following shorter tactics:

• Beautility, My Ultimate iPhone Setup ~Jason Stirman
• Five Steps to Breaking Phone Addiction ~Megan E. Holstein
• How to Make Your iPhone Black & White ~Megan E. Holstein
• A Phone Setup That Will Make You More Mindful ~Niklas Göke

A lot of tech distraction comes down to social media apps. The articles below have you either change their settings or give them up entirely.

• Is Twitter Better Without Vanity Metrics? ~Niklas Göke
• How to Go on a Social Media Hiatus ~Alec Zaffiro
• How to Stop Wasting Time on WhatsApp ~Niklas Göke
• How to Stop Being Addicted to Facebook ~Niklas Göke

Our computers have the same distractions as our phones. But so far, we just have this one article:

• How to Setup Your Mac for Focused Work ~Niklas Göke

Sometimes the technology distraction has a real human being behind it:

• The Complete Guide to Dealing with Online Trolls ~Ragen Chastain

Cure Procrastination

The roots of procrastination start in the emotional centers of our brain. Normally, we won’t even notice the subconscious emotions that trigger it. Thankfully, there are a number of tested tactics to reduce and maybe even cure procrastination.

This series starts with the world’s leading researcher in procrastination, followed by applied tactics from top coaches, and then ends with a science fiction piece about what would happen if we could design a device that would apply these tactics for us.

• How to Use Psychology to Solve the Procrastination Puzzle ~Tim Pychyl
• How To Conquer Procrastination With Three Self-Awareness Techniques~Niklas Goeke
• How To Use Software and Apps to Beat Procrastination, Pt 1 ~George Halachev
• How To Use Software and Apps to Beat Procrastination, Pt 2 ~George Halachev
• How Artists and Creatives Can Beat Procrastination ~Bjorgvin Benediktsson
• The Complete Guide to Being On Time ~Robert Bateman
• Science Fiction: The Mood Repair Device ~K. D. McAdams

Use Your Tech Tools More Productively

The following are skills to help you use your tools more productively.

If you’re on a Mac:

• How to Move Around Your Mac at the Speed of Light ~Niklas Göke

If you’re on Windows:

• How to Configure Your Windows Global Hotkeys ~George Halachev

Different ways to use your web browser:

• How to Set Up Firefox for Productivity ~Niklas Göke
• How to Save 10 Minutes Per Day While Browsing The Web ~Niklas Göke
• A Complete Guide to Being Faster in Chrome ~eorge Halachev

Even more tools:

• How to Think Clearly with Evernote ~Niklas Göke
• How to Get the Most Out of Your Calendar ~Niklas Göke
• How to Implement a Killer GTD System in Google Sheets ~Mike Sturm

For your phone:

• Battery Life Hacks ~Niklas Göke
• Configuring Your iPhone for Maximum Privacy and Security: Web Browsing ~David Koff

Office Design for Productivity & Creativity

A four-part series from an architect who specializes in applying scientific research on productivity, creativity, and flow. All by Donald M. Rattner, AIA

• How to Use the Psychology of Space
• How to Use Noise to Improve Creativity
• How to Use the Psychology of Light and Lighting
• How to Use Music to Boost Your Creativity

It helps you sort through any ideas you generated during the day, and arrange your work plan around them to get the most out of the following day. If done regularly, this can be an excellent way to analyze all the lessons you learned and use them to move towards a better, stronger, and more successful version of yourself.

So, how can you go about making the GTD daily review a part of your daily schedule. This post includes some hand-picked tips from the users of Coach.me habit tracker and will help you build this new habit.

1. Do a quick morning review

As user, Richard Olpin puts it, “my morning review is a quick skim of my forecast for the calendar, flagged and due items, etc. Weekly I do a more comprehensive project review and decide my most important tasks for the next week.”

2. Split it into two parts during the day

Following the advice of user Josh Roman, here’s what you can do:

• View your calendar the first thing in the morning. Then, quickly review your projects and update any tasks before switching to the Forecast view. Then, edit your task list and move all of tomorrow’s tasks onto tomorrow’s calendar.
• In the evening, do a quick review of your Goals & Systems so you’re in the right frame of mind for the next day. Then, review your calendar for any hardscape items, and reorganize your calendar if needed.

3. Follow a 3-step process like the weekly review 

Just like performing the GTD weekly review, user Mascha van de Weersuggests following three steps to get your daily review done:

1. Check your calendar 
2. Check your next actions lists (if you have time during that day for any next actions).
3. Look in your inboxes to estimate and plan the time you need for processing.

4. Prioritize the tasks for the day

As user Dominik Jaworski suggests, here’s what you can do: “Plugin calendar (use it as a trigger list too), notes on iPhone and Mail (physical mail from last day and actual email). Then prioritize most important things. Do a quick check on your email including deleting spam, sorting out todos, etc. in less that two minutes. The rest goes to a list item “Mail” which usually gets done after the most important tasks.”

5. Get an accountability partner

Talk to someone about your goals of doing a GTD daily review every day. This can be a friend, a roommate, a partner, a sibling, or a parent. Roping someone in on your journey and having them hold you accountable can be a way to make sure you’re not alone on this journey. headshop

You can also hire an accountability coach. These are trained professionals who will help you build a new habit or get rid of old ones. Having a compassionate, professionally-trained expert by your side can be a wonderful way to make sure you don’t fall off the wagon while trying to build this new habit of performing a GTD daily review every day.

6. Bonus: Use technology

Download a free habit tracker where you mark each day on the calendar when you successfully performed your GTD daily review. Seeing an unbroken streak of indulging in your new good habit can be an incredible motivator to keep pushing you ahead on this endeavor of performing a GTD daily review every single day.

The GTD weekly review is a systematic review process of the work you did during the week, which includes, but is not limited to:

• The projects you completed.
• The work you hope to get done the following week.
• What opportunities you are waiting for next.
• All the work you should have done but didn’t.
• Ideas and opportunities you haven’t had time to think about.

An effective idea from the Getting Things Done book is getting to a state of “mind like water.” The weekly review is a great tool to help you reach that stage every single week. The only thing important is consistency.

So, how can you be consistent with your GTD weekly review? This post discusses some effective steps you can apply right away to incorporate this amazing productivity-boosting exercise into your schedule. 

Step one: Look back into the week gone by

Think of this step as looking backward to tie all the loose ends from the bygone week. Here are some steps to help you achieve the same:

1. Grab the journals and papers where you have kept track of your progress.
2. Go through your notes.
3. Look at your calendar and address the time slots that are empty and need to be filled up, or too full and need to be emptied.
4. Look at your email inbox. Did you miss anything?
5. Pause for a reflect on any new ideas that might come to your head regarding how you can make the most of the upcoming week.

Step two: Plan to make the most of the current week

The next step is to sort all your bearings and make the most of the upcoming week. Here are some steps you can apply to implement this phase of the GTD weekly review:

1. Look at what projects you have lined up next.
2. Consider and plan your next actions.
3. Review your calendar to see where you can fit these slots in. Make sure you include time for self-care as well.

Step three: Get creative 

The final step in getting consistent with your GTD weekly review is to get creative and think of all the ways you can get even more done in a short time. This step includes the following aspects:

1. Look at your “someday I will get these done” list and see if there is something you can ditch or accomplish right away.
2. What can you eliminate from your current list that will open up more exciting opportunities and help you get more work done?
3. What are some “big ideas” you have that you can execute right away?

Bonus tips to be consistent

Once you know what you can do to accomplish a proper GTD weekly review, here are some bonus tips on how you can be consistent with this new habit.

• Keep aside a few hours every Friday afternoon for your GTD weekly review.
• If Friday afternoons don’t work for you, you can also try to do your review on Saturday mornings or Friday nights. There is no hard and fast rule regarding when you need to complete your review. You can pick the time that works best for you, even if it requires a few rounds of iteration before you can zero in on the perfect time slot that works for you.

Get a habit tracker

Using a habit tracker to mark the days you stuck to your goal of performing a GTD weekly review can be an excellent way to make sure you don’t fall off the wagon. Seeing a streak of several weeks would be an excellent motivation to keep pushing yourself. It can also serve as a reminder of what you are capable of and how much remains to be done before you can reach where you’re supposed to.

Get an accountability partner

Having someone else perform a GTD weekly review every Friday with you can make building any new habit easier. You can join a community of people who are committed to boosting their productivity.

If you can’t find a friend who’s also learning to work on a GTD weekly review, you can hire an accountability coach to help keep you on track. These are trained individuals who will hold you accountable and help you get back on track if you ever fall off the wagon.

Are you tired of setting your priorities for the day and then go to with regret at not having completed them all?

If you’re feeling overwhelmed with work and not sure which task to complete further, maybe the 1–3–5 priority setting method can help you overcome that feeling. This article is a beginner’s guide to this interesting new method called the 1–3–5 priority setting method to help boost your personal productivity as well as your productivity at work.

What is the 1–3–5 rule?

The 1–3–5 rule is simple: you need to commit to accomplishing three types of tasks every day to stay at your productive best: 1 Major Task, 3 Medium Tasks, and 5 Small Tasks.

This way, you can make progress on big projects and deliverables, complete all your small daily tasks, and also take care of any repeating daily commitments you might have. The reason this rule is effective is that it’s so simple.

How to make the 1–3–5 rule a daily habit?

Here are some tips on how you can make the 1–3–5 rule a daily habit and incorporate it into your lifestyle without consciously working too hard for it:

1. List out all your tasks for the week

Start on a Sunday and list every task you plan to accomplish in the upcoming week in your journal. Don’t think about how important they are or how urgently you need to accomplish them. The goal of this step is to get all the tasks in your head onto your planner or journal.

This is more of a brain dumping exercise and it serves the purpose of not having to remember your to-dos when you actually set yourself to achieving them the next week.

2. Divide them into groups

The next step is to group all your tasks into “major”, “medium”, and “small” tasks. If you’re not sure what criteria to consider while grouping them, here’s a guide to help you:

• If the task requires three hours or more to be completed, consider it a “major” task.
• If it takes one or two hours to be done, you can consider that task to be a “medium” task.
• If it takes thirty minutes to one hour, it’s a “small” task.

Aside from the time taken, you can also take into consideration the mental energy a task requires. Some tasks can be completed in a few minutes but take a huge toll on your energy.

3. Write your to-do list

Once you have all the tasks grouped, write a to-do list with one major task, three medium tasks, and five minor tasks.

You can either plan to-do lists for the entire week, or make your to-do lists for each day before you go to bed at night. Use a new journal to make this kind of list as it’s a radically different approach from your usual journal or to-do lists.

4. Start with the biggest tasks

When you’re starting your work for the day, you usually have the most energy and motivation. Starting with the most complex and time-taking tasks will help you get them completed, and thus start the day with a feeling of accomplishment.

5. Incorporate the Pomodoro technique

The Pomodoro technique is a great tool for boosting productivity. The concept is simple: you work in blocks of time (usually twenty-five minutes), interspersed with breaks where you can recharge.

Because you have those short breaks of five minutes strewn in so generously, you can get more work done in a short time. This helps you achieve more without feeling burned out.

6. Use technology

Get help from people who have experience dealing with your problem of not being productive enough. You can hire an accountability coach who will share helpful tips and tricks and also hold you accountable for your promise of sticking to setting the 1–3–5 method each day.

You can also get a habit tracker and mark each day on the calendar where you successfully managed to set your priorities for the day. Gamifying your habits can be a helpful way to get the most of this challenge and adopting a more productive lifestyle.

This post discusses six creative tips that will help you be more punctual and show up at work on time every day.

1. Make your bed first thing in the morning

This might sound counterintuitive. After all, if you spend more time making your bed each morning, you will lose precious time and might end up getting to work even later than your usual time.

But making your bed the first thing in the morning puts you into this productive mood that fills you with positive energy for the rest of the day. You already have one item on your to-do list checked. You will be super motivated to start checking off the rest, including getting to work on time.

2. Plan your day on the previous night

Making a to-do list before you go to sleep on the previous night can have amazing impacts on your productivity the next day. They not only help you manage your time better but knowing all the tasks you have got to do right after you wake up helps you sleep better.

Of course, sleeping on time will help you wake up on time, which, in turn, will help you get to work on time.

3. Plan your breakfast before you sleep

It is a widely accepted fact that nothing wakes you up in the morning like a big cup of coffee. It’s also extremely important to have breakfast every day.

So, how do you combine these two habits to make sure you never get late to work ever again?

Plan your meals in advance, and have them right after brushing your teeth in the morning. That way, you can have your dose of caffeine to wake you up, while at the same time, save precious time and reach work full-on energy and right on time. 

4. Keep your variables in check

If you go to the office by car pool, make sure you ensure the car will arrive the next day.

If you ride a bike, keep checking your tires and make sure your bike is in great condition to ride the next morning without any glitches.

If you travel by your own car, keep checking your fuel tank, tire pressure, brake fluid, etc.

There are so many variables not in your control. But the least things you leave to chance, the better off you will be and the easier it will get for you to reach work on time.

5. Keep your clothes ready

Choosing what to wear each morning can be a big headache and lead to decision fatigue. You can reduce the time spent on deciding what to wear in the wee hours of the morning by pressing your clothes the night before and laying them out, ready to be worn the next morning. яндекс

Also, keep your watch, keys, and wallet at the same place — somewhere that’s easily visible so you don’t waste precious time looking for them

6. Hold yourself accountable

You can do this in the following two ways:

• Maintain your daily eating habits in a habit tracker and keep track of your progress. Seeing an unbroken streak will motivate you to push yourself harder and make it easy for you to incorporate this habit into your life.
• Hire an accountability coach to help you stick to your goals and make sure you don’t miss a day even when you’re tempted. These are trained professionals who will help you get back on track if you ever lose momentum somewhere down the line.

Author Charles Duhigg, in the book The Power Of Habits: Why We Do What We Do In Life And Business, defines something known as the “habit loop.” According to this loop, you need three things to form a habit: a cue, a routine, and a reward.

The cue is when you see something or perform another activity, and this triggers in your brain the need to start practicing your new habit. The reward is something that strengthens your desire to stick to the new habit and keep repeating it day after day.

The cue and the reward are easy to reach. It’s the routine that’s the hardest, especially when you’re starting out. If you’re someone looking to build a habit of decluttering your space so you can live a more organized life, this article is exactly what you’re looking for. It discusses six simple steps you can adopt right away to become a more organized person.

1. In and out

When you get a new piece of clothing, give something else away. When you buy a new mantlepiece, throw the old one out. When you get a new notebook, trash another notebook from your desk.

This is a great habit that will prevent you from becoming a hoarder and buying more than you need. If you know you need to throw something out to be able to buy a new item, you’ll be less tempted to get something new in the first place.

This habit also ensures that after all the transactions are done, the total number of items in your closet or on your table remains the same.

2. Be consistent

Pick a periodic routine for yourself and stick to it religiously. Whether you choose to unclutter five days a week or if you’d like to turn to this new habit every day is entirely up to you. What matters is that you don’t break this new habit.

3. Turn to technology

Get help from people who have experience dealing with your problem of not being able to declutter as frequently as you’d like. You can hire an accountability coach who will share helpful tips and tricks and also hold you accountable for your promise of becoming a more organized person.

You can also get a habit tracker and mark each day on the calendar where you successfully uncluttered your room or your workspace. Gamifying your habits can be a helpful way to get the most of this challenge and adopting a more disciplined lifestyle.

4. Make a “goodbye day” every week

Toss out at least three items you don’t need every week. 

Most of the time, our houses get cluttered because we keep hoarding clothes we will never wear or items we will never use. To avoid falling into that trap, designate one day each week as “goodbye day” where you throw out three items.

5. Tidy up for fifteen minutes after dinner

You might make excuses to yourself that you don’t find time to tidy up. But if you clean up for as little as fifteen minutes after dinner each time, you’ll get a lot of tidying done over time.

The small efforts will compound, slowly seeping into your schedule and making you more organized. It will become an almost unconscious habit where you don’t have to think too hard to start cleaning your house.

6. Attack one pile of clutter every weekend

While you do your regular cleaning every night, there might be corners of your house that are so cluttered, you have no clue how to even tackle it. To stop feeling overwhelmed, start a rule of attacking one clutter pile every weekend.

That way, your clutter piles will be over soon. Also, working on one pile a day will help you get more done in less time and make you realize that most of the resistance to cleaning is in your head.

For more information and some inspiration, you can read from our experts at Better Humans. They write the best personal development stories centered around proven advice that works:

How To Stop Clutter From Ruining Your Mental State
Chaos is powerful, and we are just tired mortals who’ve had a hard week. Here’s why it’s worth it, and 6 ways to make…betterhumans.pub

Clear the Path to Your Goals With This 15-Minute Declutter Method
I’ve taught this method to people who report they now get better sleep, meet deadlines, and feel better about their…betterhumans.pub

Do a Swedish Death Clean to Overhaul Your Life
How this deep-decluttering custom clears your home and your mind as a “memento mori” in actionbetterhumans.pub

Beating Clutter by Managing Triggers and Picking Your Battles
How I got my family on board with five practical strategies for lowering anxiety and getting back in controlbetterhumans.pub

Making your bed every day is an often underestimated, but very powerful habit to add to your arsenal. It might sound like a simple habit, but the impact this has on your productivity, mood, and life, in general, is huge. 

This post addresses some reasons why every person should consider making their bed daily as an important habit to incorporate into their life. It also discusses a few interesting and creative tips on how you can go about adding this new habit to your daily routine.

How making your bed every day can improve your life

It starts your day off right

Think of it this way: making your bed the first thing in the morning can be your first accomplishment of the day. Checking off an item on your to-do list so soon in the day can be a huge mood lifter and set your mood for the day.

You’ll start off by feeling more energized and readier to take on the challenges life decides to throw your way.

It encourages you to embrace an organized lifestyle 

In other words, having a clean bed will motivate you to keep the rest of your room organized and tidy. Several research studies have found that an uncluttered room leads to an uncluttered mind. It improves your productivity and keeps you in a better mood all throughout the day.

If you always kept finding excuses to embrace an organized lifestyle, making your bed every morning can be an excellent way to challenge yourself and start doing so. Small steps you take today can have a huge impact and help shape a better future.

It lowers stress and improves mood

You spend roughly a third of your life in your bedroom. Having a neat and tidy space where you spend so many hours every day can be an incredibly cheap, easy, and effective way to improve your mood and lower your stress.

A clean room not only looks good, it also feels good and has the power to make you feel like you can achieve just about anything you set your mind to.

How to build a daily habit of making your bed every morning

Here are some tips to help you turn this amazing habit into a daily ritual:

• Make it a part of your morning routine. That way, the moment you get up, your mind and body will be trained to expect making your bed as an essential chore.
• Get rid of excuses. They will always be there, but you can work hard to be stronger than them.
• Mark every day you successfully made your bed on the calendar. This way, you’ll have a string of marks that you’ll be unwilling to break at any cost. This is the simplest way to motivate yourself to keep pushing yourself.
• Download a habit tracker and mark the days you managed to make your bed. The app will give you notifications and prompts to help you stick to your daily ritual of making your bed in the morning.
• Get an accountability buddy. This can be your partner, spouse, roommate, or even a long-distance friend. Share with them how you’re trying to make this a habit and ask them to check in every day. Having someone to hold you accountable is a great way to start incorporating this habit into your routine.
• If you can’t find a friend to hold you accountable, you can always hire an accountability coach. These are trained professionals who will celebrate your small wins and help you stay on track even if you fall off the wagon a few days.

Remember: at the end of the day, one missed day in your habit-building journey doesn’t really make much of a difference. You’re only human and it’s natural you’ll make mistakes and slip up.

The important part here is to forgive yourself for missing a few days, pick yourself up, and get back on track. Don’t treat a single missed day as an excuse to stop this habit altogether. Alternatively, you can simply count it as a bad day and move ahead with new-found determination. 

So how do you develop a practice of focus and concentrate on a single task for whatever time it takes you to complete it? This article discusses some practical steps you can apply right away to improve your focus. But before we delve in, keep in mind that these are merely guidelines. It will take a lot of hard work on your part to actually practice focus.

1. Remove distractions

This might seem to be the most obvious step, but it’s also the most essential. So many people often underestimate the power of distractions. They like to delude themselves that they are strong and can work in the face of distractions. But don’t fool yourself into believing that.

No matter whether you work in the office or at home, the first step t developing a practice of focus is to eliminate all distractions. This can be as simple as turning off the television or radio and keeping your phone in flight mode. If the distractions bothering you are mental, you might need to calm down and take a few moments to meditate.

This will help you calm your tumultuous thoughts and prepare to concentrate on the task at hand.

2. Only focus on one task at a time 

Whie it might seem like multitasking can help you get more work done, several research studies have proven that the human mind is incapable of multitasking. What we perceive as performing multiple tasks at the same time is actually our brain rapidly switching between two tasks, lowering our efficacy at both.

Don’t trick yourself into believing that you’re efficient at multitasking. Only focus on one task at a time to improve your results.

3. Practice mindfulness

When you’re mindful of your body, your thoughts, and your surroundings, you’ll find it easier to concentrate on the task at hand. This will also help you live in the present and not worry too much about the future which is ultimately anyway out of your control.

4. Take short breaks

Taking short breaks in between tasks will prevent you from getting burnt out. It will also keep you motivated to only focus on the job while you’re working, because your brain knows that it can treat itself to any distraction of its choice during the break hours. 

A good solution here is to use the Pomodoro technique. The key concept behind this technique is the idea of “time boxing”. You might have faced a situation when you know you’re wasting time, but even then find it hard to stop what you’re doing and get back to work. The time wasted on the meaningless task keeps getting longer and longer, and the task that’s the most important on your list keeps getting pushed farther and farther down your list of things to do.

This is where the Pomodoro technique comes in.

The concept is simple: you work in blocks of time (usually twenty five minutes), interspersed with breaks where you can recharge.

Because you have those short breaks of five minutes strewn in so generously, you can get more work done in a short time. This helps you achieve more without feeling burned out.

5. Be consistent

The first few days while developing a practice of focus might be hard, but the important part is to keep practicing. Things will get easier with time, and you can get better and better at concentrating on one task for long as you keep working.

To keep yourself accountable to your new habit, you can download a habit tracker that lets you mark the days on the calendar where you successfully managed to stay focused on your target task without losing concentration. A long streak of days marked on the calendar will motivate you to keep going and push yourself harder.

You can also hire an accountability coach. These are trained individuals who will hold you accountable to your new habit of developing a practice of focus and help you stay on track. Having an expert by your side will motivate you to keep pushing yourself even if you fall off the wagon for a few days.

The Pomodoro technique is one of the most famous productivity hacks. It has been used widely by people from all walks of life to get a lot of work done in a short time while making sure they don’t compromise on their “me time.”

This article is a beginner’s guide on how you can apply the Pomodoro technique to maximize your productivity. But before we delve in, let’s look a little deeper into the history behind this method.

The Pomodoro technique was first documented by the software designer and productivity expert, Francesco Cirillo, in the 1980s. It was born out of Cirillo’s need to study more in less time. He was so inspired by the results this technique showed, that he wrote a whitepaper on it, and thus, the world-famous Pomodoro technique was born.

How to apply the Pomodoro technique

The key concept behind this technique is the idea of “time boxing”. You might have faced a situation when you know you’re wasting time, but even then find it hard to stop what you’re doing and get back to work. The time wasted on the meaningless task keeps getting longer and longer, and the task that’s the most important on your list keeps getting pushed farther and farther down your list of things to do.

This is where the Pomodoro technique comes in.

The concept is simple: you work in blocks of time (usually twenty five minutes), interspersed with breaks where you can recharge.

Because you have those short breaks of five minutes strewn in so generously, you can get more work done in a short time. This helps you achieve more without feeling burned out.

Six strategies to get the most out of the Pomodoro technique

Here are six steps you need to follow so you can get the most out of applying the Pomodoro technique to boost your productivity:

• Figure out which task on your list is the most important.
• Don’t let your attention get interrupted. If you feel distracted, remind yourself that a short break is coming up soon. You can entertain yourself as much as you need during that break.
• Don’t underestimate how much time you need to complete each task. This might be difficult in the beginning, but with time, you will learn to make accurate predictions about how much time each task demands.
• Keep recapping and reviewing how much you achieved in the past few hours by using the Pomodoro technique. This will give you a better idea of how impactful this new method has been and will serve as a reminder than you need to stick to this new habit, no matter how hard it may seem.
• Keep track of your personal motives and don’t lose sight of your goal.

Bonus: Use technology 

In today’s age and time, if you’re trying to build this new habit of using the Pomodoro technique every day, you can turn to technology for help if you ever feel you’re struggling or faltering. Simply download a habit tracker that lets you mark each day on the calendar when you successfully stuck to your new habit. Seeing an unbroken streak will serve as the biggest motivator and keep pushing you on this new journey.

You can also hire an accountability coach to help keep you on track. These are trained professionals who will hold you accountable for your new habit of using the Pomodoro technique and help you get back on track if you ever fall off the wagon.

For an added bonus, read what the experts at Better Humans are saying. Our writers are the most experienced people and they only write from their own success stories. These posts will give you some hope and help you stick to this new goal of using the Pomodoro technique to boost your productivity and get the maximum work done without burning yourself out.How to Be More Productive by Hacking Your Perception of Time
The evolution of time management in 5 stages and 3 epiphaniesbetterhumans.pub

We all know there are multiple benefits to listening to podcasts and making it a daily habit. But how to consistently stick to it so you can get the most out of the listening practice? This article lays out a detailed step-by-step guide on how you can listen to more podcasts.

Listen while doing menial chores

It’s a great exercise to make boring chores less tedious if you listen to a podcast while doing them. To make sure you get the most value out of the podcast while not compromising on the results of the task you’re performing, pick something that doesn’t require your full attention.

This can be some simple tasks like cooking, cleaning, doing the dishes, washing clothes, or hanging out clothes to dry. These tasks don’t occupy much of your mental space, and you can easily complete them by multi-tasking and listening to a podcast.

Organize your listening

Listening to the same narrator for days together can be tiring and exhausting. To make sure you get the most out of your new habit of listening to a podcast daily, you can shuffle your playlist and optimize it to increase efficiency. 

Keep your library clean. Only pick podcasts you enjoy listening to. Don’t hesitate to drop a podcast you didn’t enjoy, no matter how many five-star reviews it had.

Find the right apps

The features of your podcast app play a huge role in how enjoyable the listening experience is for you. For example, some apps don’t have the sleep timer option, which can make it hard for you to listen to a podcast before going to sleep while knowing it will turn off automatically in a few minutes. 

Choose an app that has all the features you’re looking for.

Play with the speed

An interesting feature most podcast apps have is the option to adjust the speed. If you’re a native speaker, you might find the actual speed a bit too slow for you. To make sure you don’t get bored, feel free to speed up the podcast so your listening experience is hassle-free and enjoyable.

If you’re finding the pace of the narrator a bit too quick for your comfort, you can also tone it down so it becomes easier for you to listen to the podcast.

Make it a habit

When you treat your daily listening of podcasts as if you’re building a daily habit, you’re less likely to fall off the wagon. Here are two ways you can do it:

• Tie it with a trigger. A trigger is another activity you perform daily. If you tie the need to listen to a podcast with an existing habit, you can trick your brain to remind you to listen to a podcast without taking any active steps to do so.
• Get a habit tracker. This is a free app where you can mark off each day on the calendar where you stuck to your new habit of listening to a podcast. Seeing an unbroken streak will push you to aim for more days on that streak, and this will become a habit before you even realize it.
• Hire an accountability coach. The accountability coaches are trained professionals who will hold you accountable and make sure you get back on track if you fall off the wagon.